


Tarnished Goods

by TW Lewis (gardendoor)



Category: Excalibur (Comic)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-07
Updated: 2001-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:03:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardendoor/pseuds/TW%20Lewis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kitty and Kurt, each doubting their own worth, comfort each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tarnished Goods

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All characters property of Marvel. This is your last chance to run if you don’t like stories about sex.

Kurt executed flips and turns with the precision of a Swiss watch, but none of his usual good humor. He snarled as he missed a bar, quickly grabbing the next and correcting his balance, pushing himself until sweat stung and blinded his eyes, until his muscles screamed in protest. Then one of the bars unscrewed in his hand. Kurt gave a howl of pain as he landed ungracefully on his back.

“Kurt? Are you all right?” Kitty threw open the door to the basement jungle gym to find her teammate sprawled in agony on the floor. “Don’t move, you don’t know if you’re hurt badly yet,” she ordered, running to his side. “Where does it hurt?”

“Katchken, I don’t think I broke anything, I’m just -- ARGH -- bruised.” he finished with a yelp. He attempted to turn over, relieved to find that his spine was not injured.

“Hold still, Fuzzy. Let me work on you before you try getting up, I can see the muscle knots through your shirt.” She leaned over him and began a tentative massage on his back, brushing her hair out of her eyes with a snarl. “Damn hair won’t stay put. I think I should cut it short, just to keep it out of my eyes.” She started tenderly working over a knot as Kurt groaned in relief below her, his tail twitching inches from her eyes. “Hey, watch that thing. I don’t want you poking my eyes out.”

“Short hair wouldn’t suit you, katchken,” Kurt replied, his voice muffled by the arm he rested on.

“You want to tell me what this is about?”

“The bar unscrewed. I should have welded them together.”  


  
“I didn’t mean that. You’ve been punishing yourself, I can feel it in your muscles. So what’s wrong?”

There was a long silence as he felt the flesh under her fingers balance precariously between agony and release. “Brian.”

“You mean Meggan,” she corrected. “Go on.”

“You saw how he acted last night. He came home late, after spending most of the evening with Courtney Ross, then yelled at Meggan when she pleaded with him for a little quality time.”

“Come on, fuzzy. That’s not what made you nearly kill yourself working out, and you know it.” She phased her fingers into his muscles for a moment, letting the minimal resistance of atoms do what her solid fingers could not.

“She went to bed with him, but he fell asleep and she couldn’t stop crying...” He trailed off, closing his eyes against the memory of his sin. “We talked for hours. She just kept crying. He has no right to hurt her like that.”

“That’s reason to call him on the carpet, Kurt, not to turn that anger on yourself.” She solidified again and pushed her palms against the knots under his shoulder blades.

“You know what I mean.”

“You need to say it.”

He stared at the long stretch of floor and took as deep a breath as his muscles would allow. “I don’t understand why she stays with that drunken, cheating brat, when I’m right here.”

“Almost,” she murmured. He could hear the pain in her voice. “You need to say it, Kurt.”

There was a long pause. “No, I do understand why she stays with that drunken, cheating brat. It’s the same reason Amanda would never stay with me, the reason my own mother abandoned me. I’m not human, no matter what’s in my heart. Brian’s more of a man than I could ever be, no matter how awful he is.” Deft as Kitty’s fingers were, they couldn’t soothe the pain that writhed in his belly at those words.

Kitty’s hands coaxed him to roll over, and she started working on the muscles around his collarbone and shoulder. He had a feeling her real motive was to look him in the eye. “Now you listen to me, Kurt. Just because some people are too stupid to see how wonderful, how human you are, doesn’t mean you’re some sort of monster. The only reason Brian has Meggan is that he got there first and she’s too codependent to wise up.”

He turned his head, avoiding her eyes. It was all well and good for her to say that, but she was just trying to make him feel better.

She caught his chin, forced him to look at her. “Kurt, if anyone knows what it’s like to be a demon, it’s me. And you’re no demon.” His expression must have given away his doubt. “Illyana’s soul sword should have gone to her brother, her blood link. It went to me. She had other friends, Kurt, why me? Because somewhere in there, I’m still Ogun. Every time I do a kata, I can feel his training, his influence, as much as I feel Logan’s. It’s buried deep, it’s not in control, but it’s there.”

He heard the pain in her voice, thought about the things she didn’t say, couldn’t say. Her parents’ divorce. Peter’s rejection. The death of the X-men without her. Alistaire Stuart’s indifference. She had as much reason to doubt her self-worth as he had, demon ninja aside. He pulled her down and wrapped her tight in his arms, wishing he knew the words to erase her pain. He felt her arms around his neck, her head on his chest, and closed his eyes, grateful for the human contact.

Meggan’s voice rang out several floors above them; she was singing in the shower again. Kitty pulled away reluctantly. “I have to go feed Lockheed before he gets into Rachel’s sugar cereal. Are you going to be all right?”

Kurt sat up, felt various muscles complain, though the strain was less than before the massage. As for the other pain... “I think so. As much as ever, anyway.”

*****

  
The situation did not improve over the course of the day. Brian was off working with Dai Thomas, which guaranteed he’d be in a foul mood when he came home. Rachel took Meggan out to a play to head off any trouble. That left Kurt on his back in bed with nothing to do, and Kitty in her room trying to reconstruct the programs she’d made with Doug Ramsey, the ones Brian had accidentally smashed.

“Kitty!” he yelled down.

She airwalked through his floor, a grimace on her lips, her hair up in a bun, and her reading glasses falling off her nose. “Yes? What?”

“I’m bored. Could you please bring up a few of Rachel’s books?” She nodded, visibly reining in her temper. “Things aren’t going well, I take it,” he guessed.

“I was always better with hardware than software, and Doug’s left me a lot to live up to. Now add the amount of concentration it takes to keep solid so I don’t short out the system...” She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Tell ya what, fuzzy. I’ll airwalk you down to the couch, and you and I can take a break, make some popcorn, and have an Errol Flynn marathon. Sound good?”

“Sounds great.”

She pulled him up and airwalked downstairs. Kurt was fascinated by the sensation of his legs passing through furniture. His body felt lighter, as though he was underwater, and his muscles didn’t complain at the minor effort it took to get to the living room.

Kitty settled him on the couch. She came back after a few minutes with a bowl of popcorn under one arm, two movies in her free hand, and Lockheed and Widget following close behind.

“Which ones?” Kurt asked, trying to peek at the titles under her arm.

“You’ll see in a second,” she replied with a grin. She popped one in the VCR and settled back on the couch, pillowing his head in her lap and giving him a massage with her left hand while she scratched Lockheed’s back with her right. A few seconds later, the opening credits for Ivanhoe came on.

Kurt grinned. Ivanhoe annoyed Kitty greatly, and she was always ready to argue about how anti-Semitic it was. He was pretty sure she’d picked it for just that reason, to get his mind off his troubles with a friendly fight.

Two hours and a bowl of popcorn later, they were watching Robin Hood. “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Nightcrawler.

“No! Count it sometime. There are more deaths in Robin Hood than in Terminator 2.”

“That’s--”

Brian stomped in the door. “Where’s Meggan?” he demanded.  


  
“Watching *As You Like It* in London, with Rachel,” Kitty replied absently.

“Never around when I need her,” Brian growled. He flew out again.

Kurt watched him go, feeling his muscles protest as he lifted his head. “Do you realize that we are the only members of Excalibur who actually have to exercise? Brian is naturally strong, Meggan can give herself as many muscles as she requires, and the Phoenix force keeps Rachel in peak condition.”

“Ah, they’re probably worse off. Get them in an inhibitor collar and see how well they manage.” Kitty cursed as she suddenly slipped through Kurt and the couch. “Oh hell. Sorry, Kurt, I’m a little tired. Hang on.” She stood up and solidified, then sat down again.

“What happens when you sleep?” Kurt asked.

“I sleep a few inches above the bed. Otherwise I phase partially into it in the night and can’t breathe. I’d take the bed out of the room altogether, but...”

“You want some illusion that things are normal, or they’ll be normal someday. Rogue kept a negligee in her closet, I remember.”

Kitty shifted the television so that it faced the arm of the couch. Kurt leaned over the arm, and Kitty sat above him and worked on his back while they laughed at the corny repartee on the screen.  


  
Kurt sighed in pleasure. His tail curved languorously back and forth, and suddenly found itself enveloped in something hot and moist. He jerked away in surprise, only to have his back erupt in pain. “Lieber gott!”

“Kurt, don’t jump like that! You just shoved your tail in my mouth; I keep telling you to be more careful with that thing!” Kitty leaned over him again and pressed her thumbs against his spine. “Honestly, you men can be so--” teasing, she caught the tail in her mouth again, letting her tongue stroke the tip. She was amazed at his reaction, as he groaned and tensed in response. She played up and down the triangular tip with tongue and teeth, feeling him writhe in response. She grinned. She usually didn’t tease Kurt or the others, it was fun to stop being so serious for a few minutes.  


  
Kurt pulled away from her, his face burning. He could feel his erection pressing into the couch. “Don’t do it unless you mean it. I’m not granite, liebchen.”

Kitty blushed furiously, jumping away. “I’m sorry, I’m so embarrassed; I didn’t realize that it was--”

“It is.” Kurt’s own face darkened a few more shades, though it was hard to see through the short blue fur that covered him from crown to crest. “Katzchen, it’s all right. No harm done. There’s no need to be embarrassed, let’s just forget about it.”

*****

Kitty watched the mask fall over her friend’s face, the cheerful veneer that hid his fears that no one could love a man who looked like a demon incarnate, even one with the gallant soul of a poet. Who did he think he was fooling? After two years of close friendship, she knew those signs as well as she knew her own face in the mirror. This time she wasn’t willing to let it go.

She leaned over and gently kissed his mouth, feeling him freeze in surprise. Then he let out a low groan and took her face in his hands, parting his lips to deepen the kiss. His tail came up behind her to caress her shoulders as she ran her fingers through his curly hair.

Kurt pulled away from Kitty for a moment, studying her face. She knew he searched for any signs of pity, but there was only gentle love in her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

Kitty took one of his hands between her two. “You’re my friend, Kurt.”

“If that’s all it is, then I don’t want this. It will hurt that much more in the morning, katzchen. You aren’t sparing me anything with this.”

Kitty paused a moment at that. When she had first met Kurt, back when she was a skinny, scared pubescent, he had terrified her. It had taken her a long time to see emotion in his golden eyes, his strange, blue-furred features. By the time he reassured her that he was not as demonic as his appearance, she had already put him into the category of friend, not someone she was interested in sexually. Ironically, he was far and away more caring and loving than the men she’d run after over the course of the past two years, and her closest living friend. “What do you think of me?” she said, turning the question on its head.

“I asked you first,” he challenged, golden eyes flashing as he grinned.

“Come on,” she argued.

“You’re a friend,” he replied cautiously. “I respect you as a teammate and you’ve proved your worth to me. I don't let myself think of people in any other terms, it leaves too much room for disappointment.”

Kitty stroked his long, thick fingers. “You deserve better.”

Kurt shook his head wearily. “Leave it, Kitty.”

“I won’t.” she replied tightly. She leaned forward and kissed him again, intensely. “I’ve lost too many friends to throw one away like this.” She watched his eyes for his response. “Kurt, I don’t know what love is. My parents thought they had it, and they split up. I thought I had it with Peter, and he dumped me. But I care about you, and yes, I am attracted to you. Past that, we’ll just have to see.” She paused, looking away. “If you want me.” It wasn’t an idle question. It felt sometimes like guys were only interested in her big-breasted roommates, and after Ogun possessed her mind, she often wondered if her teammates thought she was tainted goods.

Kurt kissed her, letting his lips trace a line of cool fire across her throat, teasing her small ears, the veins in her throat. His fangs playfully nipped her neck. His tail slithered up to caress her shoulders and hair. Both his fingers and his tail felt alien to her, but he moved with the gentle and attentive care of an artist, delicately testing her responses.

Kitty slid her hands under his tank top, exploring his furry, muscled chest. She’d never touched it much before, and was surprised to find it soft and sleek to the touch, like velvet. Kurt’s sleek hide rippled over his wiry frame and prominent muscles, and his normally cool skin radiated heat from desire. She wasn’t sure exactly what to do, what he’d find pleasurable. Though she’d messed around with Peter a few times, they hadn’t gotten very far, and the stoic Russian didn’t show much response to anything she did.

Kurt was completely the opposite. He sucked and nibbled on her fingers, let out deep, shuddering breaths, squirmed when she found a particularly sensitive area. She traced his nipples through his tank top, then leaned over and nipped his earlobe, licked the edge of his pointy ear. His groan turned into a sob of need.

They jumped apart as they heard a sound like jet planes slowing overhead. “That would be the others,” Kitty said. She banished her thoughts and concentrated on the movie instead, watching Kurt do the same. They couldn’t let Rachel catch wind of what they’d just been up to. This wasn’t team business.

Rachel flew down the stairs, still yelling at Brian. “You oversized maniac! You could have killed those people!”

“Meggan and I were doing fine until you interfered,” he protested.

“It didn’t occur to you that ripping apart a burning building was probably not a good evacuation plan? Honestly, I think that helmet restricts the blood flow to your brain.”

“Now you listen here, young lady--”

“Brian, I’m sure she was just trying to help. Rachel, dear, can’t you just leave it be?” Meggan pleaded.

“I’m not the one with the problem,” Rachel growled.

Kitty eyed Kurt regretfully. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

*****

Between one disaster and the next, there was no more time for the two of them to explore their feelings before Widget hurled them from one world to the next in their mad caper. And then he lost her. No time to say goodbye, no time to discover if what he felt for her was love. She was dead. Barely fifteen, not even a grown woman. And now she was dead. He had to leave her on an alien world, try and go on without her, hide his feelings from the others. He didn’t want their pity.

When Excalibur returned to their proper Earth, it got worse. He tried taking time away from the team, but nothing helped. He knew he had to accept that she was gone, move on, as he had done with the X-Men. But he couldn’t do it. He threw himself into his fencing, his gymnastics, trying to get better control over his teleportation. Trying to push down the memory enough so that he could get through the day. If Rachel guessed his thoughts, she didn’t pry.

And then Kitty turned up again, alive and whole. He welcomed her back happily along with the rest of the team. But when eyes were off him, he grew pensive. She’d died. He’d seen the body. It felt alien to hold her, watch her laughing, when she should be rotting. He’d felt the same seeing Jean come back, but it was sharper now somehow.

*****

Later that night, when the others were asleep, Kitty phased up through the floor of his room. Kurt sat silent, in the dark, nothing but his golden eyes visible in the moonlight. “Kurt? You want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, katzchen. Go back to sleep.”

She smiled shyly. “I was kinda hoping you’d let me stay up here for a bit.” Her shoulders drooped when he ignored her offer. “I don’t have to be a telepath to know something’s up, Kurt.”

He looked at the floor. “When I thought you were dead, it hurt so much. And I tried then to decide if I loved you, if the time we spent together meant something more. But you almost died once, phased out of existence, and I lost you in the cross-time caper. I won’t let myself decide to love you only to lose you again.”

“You think it was easy for me? Worrying if Excalibur would ever make it home? Knowing I couldn’t do anything, that I was left behind again? Kurt, the only certainty in our line of work is that people die. It’s the time you spend living that makes it worthwhile.” She knelt on the floor by his knees. “Please, Kurt, please don’t push me away.”

*****

Kurt looked up and saw gentle brown eyes searching his own. She cared for him. He cared for her. Even if he lost her sometime in the future, he had her now. He leaned forward and kissed her, rolling her soft brown curls between his fingers. “Ach, katzchen, I missed you so.” He wrapped her in his arms, lifting her up into his lap. She kissed him back eagerly, letting out a surprised squeal when his sharp teeth nipped her throat.

Without warning, he stood up, pulling her with him. His mouth traced her collarbone, his hands ran down her arms, her back, her sides, getting acquainted with her all over again. Her own hands roamed his bare chest, tickled his belly. He bent his head and caught one hardening nipple in his mouth through her shirt, exploring it with tongue, fangs, lips. His nimble hands caught her shirt, glided over warm flesh to pull it over her head, then dropped to unfasten her jeans and spill them to the floor.

Kitty might complain loud and often about her figure, but the small, soft breasts, the hint of pot belly, the hint of muscles in her powerful arms and legs, the perfect silhouette of moonlight over her form, her knowing, trusting, uncertain eyes, the glint of silver star at her throat, these burned his senses, his memory, better than she could ever know.

She pulled off his briefs and reached out a nervous hand to touch his thigh, drift up to his shaft. He hissed through clenched teeth at the sweet sensation, losing control of his tail. The errant limb wound itself around her thigh, tugging at her underpants. He pulled these off and pressed her close, feeling her belly squirm against his erection as he kissed her lips, her hair, her cheeks, her throat. Her fingers found the head of his penis, playing lightly up and down over it. He bent to suckle at her breasts again, feeling her hot flesh press against him eagerly--

\--Only to vanish from his arms. She gave a cry of rage and frustration. “Dammit! I got distracted!”

“I should hope so,” he teased with a throaty chuckle. Then his face turned serious. “Can you do anything, or are we at an impasse?”

“I could just keep calm,” she suggested.

“I won’t take my pleasure and leave you, katzchen. There must be another way. Can you phase me along with you?”

“I can, but it means we can’t break contact at all. And we’ll need to stay away from solid objects, or we’ll have a problem.”

He grinned. “We already have a problem with solid objects,” he teased. Then he grew serious. “Kitty, how far are you willing to let this go? I don’t have any protection.”

“Hold on.” Kitty dug though the crumpled pile of clothing and found a plastic square in her jeans pocket. “You can thank Courtney Ross.” She opened it and eased the condom over his hard, stubborn piece of flesh. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and phased, taking him with her.

A draft passed through them like a lover’s touch, and Kurt kissed Kitty eagerly, feeling her wrap her legs around his torso. Both gymnasts, and now weightless besides, they had nothing to limit their contortions but their imaginations. Kurt slid down her body, kissing fire over her belly, burying his face in the mound of wiry curls below. She was soaking wet, gasping and whimpering as he teased her eager nub with his tongue. “Ah, ohh, oh Kurt, ah,” she whimpered, her fingers twisting helplessly in his hair.

He rose again, in more ways than one, until the two lovers twisted, suspended in space. He guided himself into her, resting his penis at the very edge of her opening, pushing himself in slowly, back and forth, a little deeper each time, as he suckled at her breasts, kissed her throat, her passion-swollen lips.

The sensation was unbelievable. Phased, he couldn’t feel her solid flesh. Every touch was a tease, like a silk scarf across burning skin. His shaft sunk deep into soft heat, teasing, teasing, refusing to tighten, to squeeze, just playing with him until he thought he’d go mad with frustration. From her expression, he could see she was feeling the same.

He felt a slight resistance, pushed through it eagerly, feeling her maidenhead shift and break. He slowed for as moment, nearly blind with need. “Are you all right?”

“Ani yode’at otcha, ani ohevet otcha,” she murmured, an incoherant litany. “Kurt, please, please...”

He slowed his pace, drawing himself in and out slowly, feeling her grow hotter and wetter around him. But the endless teasing was too much for him. He let himself go, pounding into her, until he finally felt her grip him, painfully solid, squeezing and clenching madly as they fell to the floor, as he exploded deep within her, feeling his seed rocket out of him, pumping, driving, so much he thought he’d drown her.

Finally they rested in each other’s arms. "What did you say, before?” Kurt asked.

“It’s Hebrew. Means I love you. Means I know you, in all senses of the word.”

Kurt drew her close against his chest. “Mein gott, Kitty, I love you so much.” They fell asleep in each other's arms.

End.


End file.
